freezing loops in session view – improvement idea
When you freeze a loop in session view, ableton captures three phases:
1. Onset – the bit before the loop actually starts
2. Loop proper – the section that repeats
3. Outset – the tail after the loop ends
Ideally, there should be a way to make frozen loops behave more naturally, closer to how unfrozen loops work. Specifically:
When you trigger a frozen loop, it should start with the onset, move into the loop proper, and when you hit stop, it should finish its current cycle and play the outset before actually stopping.
This would make frozen loops feel more fluid, rather than cutting off in an unnatural way.
Potential implementation & challenges
This would mean double-pressing stop to fully mute a loop, since loops would want to finish their cycle before stopping.
It could be optional in ableton’s settings, so users can choose between instant stopping or this more musically natural stop behaviour.
One challenge is that if a long loop is stopped early, it would still need to play through its tail before stopping, which might take a while depending on the loop length.
What do you think?
How do you handle keeping the feel of loops when freezing?
As an alternative approach putting such a in the sampler comes to mind but it's a lot more clicks.